America: Still a Land of Limitless Opportunity?

Fall 2006, Volume 28, Number 1

Joseph Ferrie

There is a popular American belief that history is not destiny, yet does this image ring true today as much as it did in the 19th century? To answer this question, IPR Faculty Associate Joseph Ferrie, associate professor of economics, examined the geographic and occupational mobility of more than 75,000 American-born men from the 1850s to the 1920s, using newly available longitudinal census data from the 19th and 20th centuries.

He found there was a time when, indeed, the United States was both geographically and occupationally more fluid than European countries such as the United Kingdom, especially in the period from 1880 to 1920. In the latter half of the 20th century, however, Canada, Sweden, and Finland all displayed greater mobility than the United States, he noted. “Geographic mobility is the key to upward mobility,” he said.

So commentators such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl Marx were correct in their observations at that time. Yet this period of “American exceptionalism,” when birth, rank or status mattered less in moving up the social and economic ladder, seems to have ended by the 1950s.

Despite the drop in mobility since the beginning of the 20th century, the image of the United States as a land of limitless opportunity and high mobility lingers, he said. And this perception continues to shape Americans’ values and political views—for example, steering away support for a radical labor movement or a more comprehensive welfare program.

Ferrie, who presented his results at an IPR colloquium, is investigating the exact causes of the decline in geographic mobility, but he said it might be linked to the rise of public education as the avenue to opportunity in the 20th century.

Additionally, he is considering the rise of a corporate culture that rewarded workers for remaining with the same firm and the creation of the American welfare state, which allowed people to ride out job losses and stay in their communities.

“It was easy to move up without status and connections; however, in the 20th century, it is harder to do because of fewer opportunities,” he said.

The study, “History lessons: The end of American exceptionalism? Mobility in the United States since 1850,” appeared in the Journal of Economic Perspectives 19(3): 199-215.